Young innovators reshape the future of food

Announcing the finalists of the 2017 Ericsson Innovation Awards (EIA) – a global student competition that focuses this year on finding sustainable solutions to food production, distribution, and consumption.

The annual innovation award is a global competition that gives students an opportunity to develop innovative ICT solutions in collaboration with Ericsson experts. The theme of this year’s competition reinforces Ericsson’s support for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and in particular the goal of ending hunger by 2030. The planet faces a major challenge when it comes to food with the global population expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050.

Börje Ekholm, President and CEO of Ericsson says: “As our world’s population rises, so does the challenge of ensuring zero hunger. This competition allows us to discover new technologies to transform our quality of life, food production and consumption.”

A total of 907 teams from 75 countries registered for the competition and of those 3 teams have now been selected to compete in the finals on June 12, 2017 at the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. The finalists are:

Foodgrid, Aalto University, Finland: Foodgrid is expanding urban agriculture and minimizing the distance between farm and table by building a social and commercial platform to connect urban farmers, landowners with green space, and consumers.

SNAP, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India: SNAP’s product reduces the high cost and inefficiency of soil sample analytics by providing farmers real-time soil data and allowing them to select appropriate fertilizers.

Enigma, India Institute of Technology Delhi, India: Enigma seeks to reduce weevil infestations in rice crop storage with a device that can detect the presence of weevils and the severity of an infestation, then spray pesticides accordingly.

Gunjan Aggarwal, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Ericsson, says: “This competition is important to us as we have been a leading innovator for over 140 years. Innovation is in our DNA. We see these awards as great way to share with students around the world our competence and experience to inspire the next generation of innovators."

The ‘Future of Food’ was also a theme shared by the 2016 Nobel Week Dialogue where Ericsson is a partner.